*The Royal Marines will be cut by 200. The 200 posts, including many specialist roles, will be transferred from the marines to the Royal Navy to stave off staffing gaps.

*The British Library is considering a 500 million pounds ($624.35 million) extension that will offer it 100,000 sq ft of extra space for education, exhibitions and research next to its headquarters at St Pancras in London.

*Australia defended BHP Billiton Ltd on Tuesday, saying that any major changes to the corporate structure of the country's biggest company would need to be consistent with the "national interest". The defence came after activist hedge fund Elliott Advisors called on Monday for the scrapping of BHP's dual corporate structure involving Australian and British companies. ($1 = 0.8008 pounds) (Compiled by Bhanu Pratap in Bengaluru; Editing by Sandra Maler)